OUR SCHOLARS | Dr. Siavush Randjbar-Daemi

Siavush Randjbar-Daemi is a lecturer of Iranian History at the University of Manchester. Prior to arriving at Manchester, he taught Middle Eastern and Iranian History at Royal Holloway and the University of London School of Oriental and African Studies.

Randjbar-Daemi received his education from several universities such as: London School of Economics, University of London School of Oriental and African Studies (MA), and University of London Royal Holloway (PhD). He is the Book Reviews Editor (History) for the Iranian Studies academic journal and is preparing to teach the only specialist course on the Iranian Revolution of 1979 in the UK.

He is presently writing a book entitled, Controlling Iran: The Struggle for Power in the Islamic Republic, forthcoming in October 2015. His published journal articles include: “Building the Islamic State: The Draft Constitution of 1979 Reconsidered”, “Bar Bal-e Bohran [Flying on the Wings of Crisis] (Book Review)”, and “The Quest for the State in the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

Dr. Siavush Randjbar-Daemi is Featured in The Third Path

What Dr. Siavush Randjbar-Daemi Said

“The success of the Tudeh Party was not just due to the fact that suddenly there was a sharp increase in Iranians with Marxist persuasion or Stalinists, or people who had dogmatic or ideological alignment to the Soviet Union and the emerging Eastern Block, and therefore saw in the Tudeh Party the realization of their political ambitions. It was also due to the fact that the Tudeh Party was a party that embodied modernism. It embodied a way out of traditional primitive and some would say archaic forms of culture and society and political interaction that many had witnessed in Iran. It was therefore, for many members or for many young educated Middle Class people especially, the realization of the dream to enter into progressive modernist party, and it didn’t quite have peers in this regard.”

“The Shah himself had fled. Mosaddegh now was at a conundrum. He was still left with this issue of this parliament being there. He had to contend with a constitutional crisis that hadn’t quite been witnessed for decades in Iran or at all. What could he do? Where was Mosaddegh in all of these days, first of all? From the 16th to 19th of August there is little evidence to suggest that he left his bed really. He was there in his bedroom. There were a constant stream of people. His parliamentary allies, party figures close to him, constantly visiting him and trying to work out things with him, and then there were meetings and sessions, and they were all trying to hammer out something.”

“So the repression of SAVAK and other bodies of the Iranian government also contributed to the rise of Khomeini as the flagbearer. As the flagship if you want, opposition figure by the mid-60s and with Khomeini in exile the Shah thought that he had finally turned all the corners. He was in exile. He was neutralized politically. The emerging guerilla insurrection was limited and was put down in a heavy-handed way through SAVAK and through executions organized by SAVAK. The political system was normalized with the selection of Amir-Abbas Hoveida as Prime Minister.”